| The legend of Center Park was the guy who | | | | Park to get married and have an able bodied child. |
| made it up the stairwell in his manual wheelchair, | | | | I went quite overboard to make sure she would |
| got onto the roof, and jumped off and | | | | be safe. So I am one of the "escapees" of |
| successfully died. Really, there was nothing to do | | | | Center Park, although I was never one of the |
| at Center Park, except for gossip mongering and | | | | residents. At the time I lived there, I wasn't yet |
| television. The most exciting weekly event was | | | | physically or mentally challenged. That would come |
| when the old ladies left on the communal charter | | | | later, when I was put on medication for |
| bus to go get their ancient hair done at the | | | | depression, which did some bad things to my |
| beauty parlor, or once a week working in the arts | | | | physical system and caused severe spasming and |
| and crafts room, needing to allow several days | | | | disability, most of which has now abated with me. |
| for your project to harden and dry. | | | | Reggie has a bad back and some other minor |
| Nowadays, thank God, disabled people have the | | | | physical problems, but he's now semi-retired, and |
| Internet within easy reach. A life of contemplating | | | | he can still perform his beloved landscaping and |
| suicide is no real life, don't you think? That major | | | | gardening without any real problems. |
| problem with spending one's time is now relatively | | | | What you need to learn from this article is that |
| resolved. But there are surely other such Civil | | | | even autobiographical stuff can make one very |
| Rights Movement problems to conquer, including | | | | happy and content person happen. Anyway, this is |
| renaming the entire thing something weird, like the | | | | really about Social Politics, and the way of the |
| Independent Living Movement. Actually, I'm just | | | | world is that even disabled people must suffer |
| kidding; those are two separate movements. | | | | from losing one or more attendants at a time. |
| Black People don't think in terms of their being | | | | Then, they get replaced by other ones. What |
| disabled like "we" are, they consider themselves | | | | truth this becomes is there is a job in politics |
| able and challenged only by social rituals such as | | | | awaiting you if you care for caring for other |
| being or not being hired and other such sociological | | | | people. In short, disabled people need attendants, |
| problems. It is an entirely different thing, but there | | | | and this article advertises for the job. You can |
| are certainly disabled African-Americans who need | | | | find it in the newspapers and on the Internet |
| access to both of those movements. Learning | | | | under "home health care aides" - and other such |
| disabilities - for one - are prevalent in every | | | | titles. |
| community in the United States. At Center Park, | | | | You don't have to think of it as politics so much |
| there was some discussion that I recall about this. | | | | anymore because of the Internet. Also, it's a |
| Learning disabilities can preclude your being able to | | | | nursing oriented job that can lead to wonderful |
| compete on the same level for a job, whether | | | | factionalism among the compadres who gather |
| you live at Center Park or anywhere else. Life in | | | | and create new things that make absolutely this |
| there included many such learning challenges. | | | | entire world into a wonderful place. Meanwhile, I |
| There's still the most beautiful Adam and Eve | | | | know this is true, because I am now disabled |
| garden you ever saw, which was focused on | | | | physically - where I wasn't before; it was going to |
| your being able to circumnavigate it in a | | | | happen anyway, and yes, I am now a |
| wheelchair with ease. But they probably won't let | | | | professional writer. You too can do such terrific |
| you smoke at Center Park nowadays, except for | | | | things with your life, such as writing for pay, and |
| right outside the building's perimeter. Smoking was | | | | now all of we who are physically challenged have |
| "not allowed" - back in the 1980s. I'm sure they | | | | the WWW Internet at our polite disposal. |
| still let them smoke outside. The wondrous | | | | Isn't life great, whether you're disabled, |
| garden, a fairytale paradise of sorts, was looped | | | | handicapped, physically or mentally challenged, or |
| around the building, and it but now lurks in my | | | | not, when you have something to do? For |
| mind's eye - it's where two almost ex-heroes | | | | example, although I have a minor physical disability |
| met, namely, my husband and me. I had saved a | | | | and some minor mental difficulties, I am quite |
| Black family once, and he had rescued thousands | | | | capable of being a freelance writer, copy editor, |
| of people during his stint as a medic in the Viet | | | | rewriter, ghost writer, author and illustrator on an |
| Nam War. | | | | ongoing professional basis. Therefore, you should |
| We had both several times tossed our lives away | | | | consider my services, if you have a book |
| to serve other people - and we both had | | | | manuscript or are preparing one for publication. |
| completely forgotten that. He and I were personal | | | | Thus ends my series of articles about our local |
| care attendants, me in the home, and he in the | | | | Independent Living Movement and the Physically |
| hospital system. We were finally villains for a | | | | and Mentally Challenged people of Center Park, |
| change with each other, and we "dumped" Center | | | | Seattle, Washington, USA. |